Fetch

Can’t beat fetch. We always play till Bernie says his arm is falling off, and then a little more. Here are my favorite balls, in order.

Lacrosse – bounces in a crazy way I like, and chewing on it – wow!

Tennis – especially fresh ones, right out of the can.

Baseball – lots going on inside these babies!

Golf – on the small side, but excellent for chewing.

Football – strange bounces, and you have to get hold of it at the end, but lots of fun.

Basketball – impossible till you bite through it. Then it softens up nicely to something manageable.

Are there any other balls I’m leaving out? Maybe, but we’re on a case, something about Colonel Bob’s son. First comes breakfast. Bernie says it’s the most important meal of the day, but the truth is they’re all very very important.

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It looks like the workout ball I had years ago – to use for ab crunches…. I think I attempted one or two crunches and then, I discovered it was the perfect height for a footrest when I was watching TV.

Cosmo, any word yet? Also Chet, we haven't received our business card yet and we sent our request in on day 1. Should we resend the request or wait a little longer? We don't want to lose the "window of opportunity"!

Yep, that's an exercise ball, all right. You got us one too, Mom, that we had around here forever… Wonder whatever happened to that thing? Basement maybe, or fatally wounded in action of some kind…

Henry went to the vet for surgery today. He's getting a microchip too, so now there will be no little unwanted Henries running around *and* if he gets lost, he can still come back to the rescue, until he finds his forever home. Wojo is wandering around the backyard by himself now. It's kinda dull back there, but he's managing. He misses his packmate.

Guys! All balls are exercise balls. All but one and the Newfs are playing with the one ball that will capture and suffocate them into submission. Just ask Patrick McGoohan. Well, actually he's dead, but that just proves my point!

may i suggest softballs? they are really not so soft anymore, but most are still made of quite tasty leather and their larger size as compared to a baseball makes them easier and safer to carry and roll around with the nose. when i was a pup and still extremely busy as my brain circuits were sparking every second and my mom and dad had to work late, they would dump over a hundred softballs out of a bucket in the lobby of our office. being a border collie, it was very exciting to me to see them scatter and i would spend hours arranging them in various flocks and then dad would come out and we'd spill them all over again! there were other offices in our building and our lobby had a big plate glass window to the street so i had a big fan club to entertain as well. they would wait for my dad to dump a bucket of balls at night before their appointments with other offices in the building. late at night my biggest fan was sheriff todd, who would sit in our parking lot in this patrol car and do his paperwork while watching for perps who run the four way stop sign there. he could never get enough of me herding softballs! now my personal favorite toy is a floppy frisbee in the pool, but i still love a bucket of dumped softballs….hmmmm….big sunbeam on the couch right now and i feel a nap coming on….later!

wow my mom feeder (feeder #1 – although when feeder #2, my dad feeds me, like he did this morning it's very exciting because although he uses the same measuring instruments as my mom, he exceeds the intended dosage and nuggets overflow into my bowl! YEAH!!!) sure does laugh a lot when she reads over my shoulder as i am on chet's site! melanie – the newf pack-ers are gorgeous and look very athletic with the air they are getting trailing down that big, giant ball! WOW! rio – you are right, i only know a hundred means A LOT… my mom said, "there's got to be over a hundred balls in there!" sort of sent my mind into a daze….i love to count even though i don't know the proper order or anything…i just sort of go one..one…one..one…i think dad said like a hundred and thirty balls to a bucket?…back to the warm fla sunshine! hope you guys are all able to get a nap in this afternoon! -s

I think some shepherd-type dogs can count, though. Blaze, this GSD that I was very fortunate to be accepted by, after we'd known each other for months or years, used to count us on dog-o-rama nights. She'd do a circuit, going from room to room to count us and make sure we were all still there. Then she'd retrieve or jump over a gate for a while, you know, 'cause a dog-o-rama *is* a party, after all, but then she had to stop and do the rounds again, counting, counting, checking that nobody had gone missing.

But maybe it's not exactly counting… I dunno. That's what we used to call it, anyway, and like any member of your tribe, Chet, she always knew when someone had disappeared, before anyone else ever noticed.

Hey Chet, I found this evil perp hanging out in my mom's bathroom. Somehow it got a lot of bites taken out of it, more than 2 I think. Tasty, but not as good as a ball. I like balls, did I say that already? But that's a story for a another day…..

Wags! Wags! Oh, wiggles and wags! Henry is home from the Big Snip-and-Chip! Wojo was crying and frantically wiggling to see him, and I have to say, that much mass shouldn't be able to move like that. Henry will be separated from Wojo for at least a week by the bars of his crate, as he is supposed to be calm and quiet for two weeks. Henry was glad to see him too, but was prevented from expressing it too crazily by– you guessed it– the crate.

I ask you, who thought up a procedure involving keeping a one-year-old dog quiet for a fortnight?

I'm fairly sure that no such procedure exists. Quite the opposite in fact: take one dog that doesn't make a sound and put her in with out two rapscallions for a week, and she comes out howling, yipping, barking, and making all sorts of wonderful sounds. For some strange reason, we weren't invited to dog sit again…

Speaking of balls, though, any ideas on how to teach a dog to fetch? Our tripod loves to run, but he never learned about chasing the ball down! All he does is give you that look that says 'I was chewing on that'.

My tribe doesn't play fetch with balls of any kind. I am sure we are missing out on something, but I just can't quite figure it out.

To all of you in this community that are fostering dogs. Thank you and bless you. My mom has her moments when she would like to foster dogs, but just the thought of more huskys from Siberian Husky Rescue (I came from there) running around the house makes her very tired.

Hey Guys – Wow, just like Siberian Husky, I can't get into the ball thing – it must be part of being a hound. All I love to play with is stuffed animals (hope Dogtaniun Jr. isn't reading!) and chew on rawhides. But glad you guys have fun – the newfs look like they're having a blast! We also love the pics of Barb and Luna. Thanks again for asking about me, sorry if you missed my comments earlier that I'm doing great and the vet called and said my tumor was benign. Not sure what that means, but it must be good 'cause my pack was pretty happy about it! Henry, hope you're doing OK – the good part is that you'll never be lost. Here's me with one of my very favorite stuffed animals – a squirrel with a squeaker in his belly AND his tail. Unfortunately the one in his belly doesn't work anymore, something about me chewing too hard…

On the subject of teaching a dog to fetch: A dog behaviorist suggested rubbing something "yummy" like chicken fat or bacon grease on a tennis ball you don't plan to have forever. That solves the problem of the dog being "not interested" in the ball, and you can gradually decrease whatever you rub on a ball a few times until it's not necessary as the other parts of the game "click" for your dog. And if a ball is too predictable, try a kong– those things bounce every which way.

The trick to getting the dog to give you the ball (instead of playing Chet's favorite game) is even easier: have a treat ready, and trade the treat for the ball. I think even Chet would agree that it's not a bad trade-off. (I am not a behaviorist or an expert in any way– this is just my memory of what a behaviorist told me once.)

Cosmo! mmmm…well….thanks for what you said yesterday. But you don’t know how bad I can be. All dogs go to Heaven, but not me. That’s what I’ve been told. Especially after the episode with Cat Voodoo today.